Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe / Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank)

A familiar annual feature at Shakespeare's Globe has been the Playing Shakespeare With Deutsche Bank production created specially for schools, which gives away thousands of free tickets to students. Its popularity has seen it become increasingly open to general audiences, and after a couple of past productions were made available online during lockdown, this year's has been given an additional few weeks' run after the school parties have seen it. The fact that the shows are heavily edited meant that for the first time ever I felt able to risk a standing ticket among the groundlings without too much fear of putting my back out, so after over a decade seeing most shows at the Globe I finally got to be right at the front of the action, where Rose Revitt's design has added a deep thrust into the yard. As these shows are tied to the school curriculum I don't remember it ever being anything other than Macbeth or Romeo & Juliet, and the fact that this thrust is a blasted heath is a clue as to whose turn it is.

In Sarah Frankcom's production Fiston Barek plays Macbeth, the general who's coming out of a grisly battle when he's confronted by three witches, who promise his friend Banquo (David Hartley) that his descendants will inherit the throne of Scotland; but for Macbeth himself, the glory is more immediate, as among their prophecies is that he will be king.

Everything else they promise him happens naturally, but Macbeth's wife convinces him to take matters into their own hands to speed up the process: When the king comes to stay at their castle, they kill him and frame his heir, leaving them next in line. Frankcom's production is a pretty clear and straightforward telling of the story, but without much of the playful inventiveness these schools productions are often known for. Standing up against the sackcloth-covered thrust I wondered if we'd get the traditional appearance from the witches coming out from under the stage to scare the groundlings, but no - maybe they're still understandably holding back from interacting too closely with the audience, as there's not really any of that.

The witches are, however, the best part of the production. In contrast to the rest of the cast's generically mediaeval look, Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, Aoife Gaston and Beth Hinton-Lever have been given more of an African-inspired design, with antelope skull masks and totemic wooden statues for the visions that come out of the cauldron. Combined with Louise Anna Duggan and Zands Duggan's percussion-heavy music their appearances are dramatic and atmospheric enough to really bring the production to life.

Other than them the most memorable performance is Chris Nayak's Duncan, who's not so much world-weary as bored of the whole thing - I loved his utter disdain at Banquo waffling on about how nice Macbeth's castle is. And giving him a fairly spiky relationship with Issam Al Ghussain's stroppy teenage Malcolm makes sense of how easily the Macbeths can pin the murder on his son. Other ideas don't come off as well - Hinton-Lever playing the Porter as genuinely scared that she might be letting in demons is interesting, but needs more time than the rushed constraints of this production to work. Needless to say, the English scene between Malcolm and Macduff (Patrick Elue,) which at the best of times only makes sense if you've really hammered home the idea of Macbeth's Scotland being a surveillance state, is particularly nonsensical when it's rushed through.

Unfortunately I also found Barek quite shouty, with some weird choices of intonation (why does the word "thane" always seem to take him by surprise?) which isn't ideal - in their scenes together Hannah Azuonye's Lady Macbeth is a lot more dynamic. I don't think Frankcom's directed at the Globe before which could explain part of why her production doesn't really take advantage of its unique actor/audience dynamic, which leaves it feeling a bit on the dry side when the witches aren't there to liven things up. But a largely straightforward take does at least have a few moments where interesting ideas surface.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare is booking until the 16th of April at Shakespeare's Globe.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Cesare De Giglio.